Apparatus for production of printed web materials



United States Patent [72] Inventor Roy Edward Rochtord Wallington, England [21] Appl. No. 711,560 [22] Filed March 8, 1968 [45] Patented Nov. 24, 1970 [73] Assignee Thomas De La Rue and Company Limited,

London, England a corporation of the United Kingdom [32] Priority March 8, 1967 [3 3] Great Britain [31] No.11016/67 [54] APPARATUS FOR PRODUCTION OF PRINTED WEB MATERIALS 8 Claims, 11 Drawing Figs.

52] user '101/92 101 219 [51] Int. Cl 1 B41f 5/06 [50] Field ofSearch 10l/92,91, 76,77,110, 232, 226, 227, 228, 219

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,980,014 4/1961 Bonsch 101/91 c o M P L 1: TE

"A AAA 4 a (A a A A 5 m 444.54 A'AA A AAA AA awn-71 144 5 3,035,517 5/1962 Bonsch 10l/132.5 3,138,092 6/1964 Block 101/91 3,358,593 12/1967 Ritzerfeld et al. 101/91 1,196,729 8/1916 Barroll 101/91 2,012,670 8/1935 Mack 101/91 2,204,971 6/1940 Rouan et a1... 101/110 2,421,823 6/1947 Allen et a1. lOl/91X 3,330,207 7/1967 DeMay 101/92 Primary Examiner-William B. Penn Attorney- Baldwin, Wight, Diller and Brown Patented Nov. 24, 1970 arm fawn 1d #7 J' APPARATUS FOR PRODUCTION OF PRINTED WEB MATERIALS This invention relates to apparatus for printing web material with a plurality of consecutively repeating patterns.

The apparatus of the present invention has particular utility in, but is not limited to, the economic and rapid printing of web material with mixed formats in a predetermined order and suitable for cutting up to produce, for example, sets of desired mixed sheet assemblies for banding together into cheque-books. Thus, although hereinafter this specification describes mainly apparatus for the printing of web material suitable for ultimate conversion into cheque-books, it will be clear to those skilled in the art that the apparatus described herein is not limited thereto.

Conventionally, cheque-books comprise mixed documents in a predetermined order, the component documents comprising, for example, cheques themselves, one or more credit or payin" slips, and one or more (usually one) cheque-book reorder form, which documents are produced separatelybefore being brought together in a single assembly. The order of such documents is important, for example, it may be necessary to interpose credit slips regularly throughout the assembly, and to position a reorder form in front of say the last six cheques, so that a banks customer will be reminded to obtain a new cheque-book in good time.

Conventional cheque-book assemblies are derived from printed sheets comprising separately the different types of documents, and are produced by relatively expensive methods. The cost is accounted for by, for example, the economics of a plurality of separate operations, and the necessary handling and storage of the various kinds of multiple sheets from which individual documents are subsequently cut. The insertion of the different documents into the final assembly in their correct positions, orthe correct collation of the documents, is an additional step which adds to the expense and which is prone to-error.

The present invention provides apparatus for printing web material with a plurality of consecutively repeating patterns comprising a printing cylinder including a retractable segment means adapted, upon completion of any desired number of complete revolutions of the cylinder, to move said retractable segment alternately into and away from its operative printing position.

The cylinder may also include a permanently operative printing surface; or it may not.

Preferred apparatus in accordance with the present invention includes a pluralityof printing cylinders as defined above, said cylinders being arranged so as to print the web in predetermined positions thereon.

.The retractable segment may comprise a rectangular format printing plate. The permanently operative printing surface may comprise a plurality of such plates.

According to one aspect of the invention the retractable segment comprises a rectangular format printing plate thereby to provide a continuous arrangement of regularly pitched printing plates around the cylinder circumference when the retractable segment is in its operative printing position. The operative printing plates may be of a different configuration from that of the rectangular format printing plate comprising the retractable segment.

According to one embodiment of the present invention the printing surfaces of the first printing cylinder are of identical configuration and the apparatus further includes a second cylinder which includes solely a retractable segment provided with a rectangular format printing plate having a configuration different from that of the printing plates of the first printing cylinder, and means, adapted upon completion of any desired number of complete revolutions of said second cylinder, to

move the retractable segment thereof into its operative printing position so that it prints upon portions of the web not printed upon by the first printing cylinder.

According to a further embodiment of the present invention the printing surface of the retractable segment of the printing cylinder is 'of different configuration from that of the remainder and the apparatus further includes a second printing cylinder which includes solely a retractable segment provided with a rectangular format printing plate having a configuration different from the configurations of any of the printing plates of the first printing cylinder and means adapted upon completion of one or more consecutive complete revolutions of said second cylinder to move the rectangular format printing plate thereof into its effective printing position so that it prints upon portions of the web not printed upon by the first printing cylinder.

A preferred embodiment of the apparatus of the present invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying diagrammatic drawings of which:

FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic representation ofa part ofu paper web bearing printed impressions forming the components of a cheque-book;

'FIG. 2 is a schematic side elevation illustrating two printing stages involved in the production of the printed web shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a partly fragmented side view of one of a pair of printing cylinders taken generally along line 33 in FIG. 2;

FIGS. 4 to 9 illustrate diagrammatically six different sequential operative positions of the cylinder shown in FIG. 3; and

FIGS. 10 and II are similar diagrammatic representations of two operative positions of a second cylinder of the pair of printing cylinders shown in FIG. 3.

In FIG. 1 a paper web 1 is printed along the web with two identical sets of cheque-book component formats in side-byside configuration. The cheques are indicated by symbol A. the credit slips by symbol B and the reorder forms by symbol C; thus a complete cheque-book comprises 36 documents made up in the following order: Five Cheques, One Credit Slip, Five Cheques, One Credit Slip, Five Cheques, One Credit Slip, Five Cheques, One Reorder Form, Five Cheques, One Credit Slip, Five Cheques, One Credit Slip.

The paper web 1 is printed in a continuous manner by means of two successive printing stages indicated generally at X and Y in FIG. 2. Stages X and Y include printing cylinders 2 and 3, impression cylinders 4 and 5, and inking systems 6 and 7 respectively.

The printing cylinder 2 of stage X is capable of printing six equallypitched sheet formats every revolution by means of fivecheque printing plates marked A which arerigidly attached to its circumference, and a sixth credit slip printing plate marked B which is attached to the arcuate portion of a retractable segment 8. Thus thecylinder 2 may be arranged to print either five cheque impressions and a credit slip impression, or alternatively, by retracting the segment 8, five cheque impressionsfollowed by a gap, for every complete revolution it makes. I

The printing cylinder 3 of stage Y is provided with a retractable segment 9 of similar construction and size to that of the segment of the cylinder 2. In this instance, the arcuate portion of 9 is provided with a reorder form printing plate C. The-remainder of the printing circumference of the cylinder 3 is a nonprinting area; thus the cylinder may be arranged to print a reorder form impression on to the paper web when desired by moving the segment 9 in an outward radial direction.

Both printing stages are positivelygeared together and phased in such a manner that plate C of stage Y is capable of printing onto the gap formed between the A impressions applied by the cylinder 2 with the segment 8 retracted.

It should be noted that FIG. 2 is two-dimensional, and that in order to produce the web pattern as is shown in FIG. 1, pairs of identical plates are provided transversely across the printing cylinders thus to print two cheque-book assemblies simultaneously.

The actual construction of the printing cylinders will now be described in greater detail with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4 which relate specifically to the cylinder 2 of printing stage X.

It should be noted that certain components shown in FIG. 3 have been omitted from FIG. 4 to assist in the understanding of the invention and for a similar reason the cylinder has been rotated through 180 in the former figure to permit certain components to be observed more clearly.

The cylinder 2 is rigidly attached to a shaft and is positively driven by means of a gear wheel 11. The printing plates B are attached to the arcuate surface of the retractable segment 8 (as already referred to) and the segment is slidably mounted within a parallel side groove 12 formed in the body of the cylinder. The segment is internally grooved at 13 and provided with a capping plate 14 which with the groove 13 defines a longitudinally extending rectangular opening 15. An oscillatory shaft 16 is provided within the opening 15, the opposite ends of the shaft being journalled in bores formed in disc members 17 and 18 which are attached to, and abut with, the end faces ofthe cylinder 2.

lntermediately on the shaft 16 is rigidly mounted a pair of cylindrical cams l9 and 20, the working surfaces of which coact with the inner and outer surfaces of the rectangular opening 15. The shaft 16 extends externally of the disc 18 and terminates at an actuating lever 21 rigidly attached thereto. The free end of the lever 21 is provided with a stub-shaft 21' on to which is mounted a ball bearing cam-follower 22 adapted to coact with a double cam-track 23 formed in the inner side face of a gear wheel 24. The cam-track is diagrammatically illustrated in FIGS. 4-11 inclusive as a spaced pair of chain-dotted lines. The gear wheel 24 is freely mounted on the cylinder shaft 10 by means of a ball race 25. Thus it will be seen that when the gear wheel 24 is rotated relatively to the cylinder the cam-follower 22 will be moved in a radial direction in accordance with the cam-track 23 and, through the medium of the lever 21, the shaft 16, and the cams 19 and attached thereto, the segment together with its associated printing plate B will be moved to and from its operative printing position.

The printing cylinder 2 is driven from the main drive of the printing machine (not shown) by means of a gear wheel 26 which is adapted to mesh with thegear wheel 11. The gear wheel 26 is fixedly mounted to a shaft 27 which drives the impression cylinder 4 and also drives a second gear wheel 28 which meshes with the gear wheel 24. The printing and impression cylinders are driven together at a constant peripheral speed and the reduction ratio between the gears 28 and 24 is such that the cam driving gear 24 runs at a slower speed than the coaxially mounted cylinder driving gear 11 (in the direction indicated by chain-dotted and solid arrows respectively). In the present instance, during which six complete revolutions are necessary to print the format pattern as shown in FIG. 1, the cam gear 24 will rotate through only five revolutions and thus during this period there will, in effect, he a single revolution of the cam driving gear 24 with respect to the cylinder driving gear 11.

The construction of the cylinder 3 of the printing stage Y is basically identical to that described above with the exception that the cam-track, which is shown diagramatically as 23' in FIG. 10, is complementary in profile to that of the one used in the printing stage X, in so far that 23 provides for a relatively long lift period whereas 23 provides for a short "lift" period.

The overall operating sequence of the apparatus will now be described by additional reference to the FIGS. 4--I1. The six downwardly directed arrows situated between FIG. I and FIGS. 4-9 indicate the actual cam-track and printing segment positions at the end of each of the six successive revolutions of the printing cylinder of stage X that are necessary to print a complete series or set ofcheque-book formats.

Thus it will be seen that the segment 8 is operative for the first three revolutions of the printing cylinder, retracted during the fourth revolution and operative again during the fifth and sixth revolutions. The cycle is continuously repeated to print abutting series ofcheque-book formats upon the web. By this means the printing stage 'X will print the whole of the A and B impressions as shown in FIG. 1, and a gap will be formed on the web in the positions C.

A brief reference will now be made to the operating sequence of the printing stage Y which is provided solely to print an impression C in the gap referred to above. The gearing system is identical to that of the stage X and accordingly the cam-track 23' as shown in FIGS. 10 and 11 will rotate once, relatively to the cylinder, for every six revolutions covered by the cylinder and since the cam-track of stage Y is complementary to that of the cam-track of stage X the segment 9 will only-become operative every sixth revolution (see FIG. 11). As has been emphasised previously the two stages must be correctly phased together in accordance with the slack length of web existing between their effective printing nips to ensure that equally pitched rows of composite impressions are printed upon the'web.

It will be realised-that the cylinder arrangement as shown in FIG. 2 is of its simplest form and that in order to print multicolour impressions it will be necessary to provide additional printing stages as required. Furthermore, a printing stage may also he provided to print the underside of the web. In all cases it is necessary to ensure that print register is maintained as the impressions are applied progressively to be web.

lclaim:

1. Apparatus for printing web material with a plurality of consecutively repeating patterns comprising a printing cylinder carrying a plurality of printing plates about the periphery thereof, said plurality of printing plates being fixed on said cylinder periphery, means mounting another printing plate on said cylinder periphery for radial movement into an outward normally effective printing position and away therefrom, said other printing plate having a document format different from document formats of said firstmentioned plates, an impression cylinder adapted to form a printing nip with said printing cylinder between which web material is adapted to be fed, drive means for rotating said printing cylinder through a plurality of complete printing cycles, actuating means driven by said drive means and connected to said movable printing plate for moving said movable printing plate to a retracted inoperative position in a given cycle after every predetermined number of plural revolutions of said printing cylinder.

2. The apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein said actuating means includes cam means driven by said driving means, cam follower means movable in response to movement of said cam means, and means pivotally interconnecting said cam follower means to said movable printing plate whereby the latter is moved in response to the movement of said cam follower means relative to said cam means.

3. The apparatus as defined in claim 1 including a second printing cylinder carrying a second plurality of printing plates about the periphery thereof, said second plurality of printing plates being fixed on said second cylinder periphery, means mounting another printing plate on said second cylinder periphery for radial movement into an outward normally effective printing position and away therefrom, said second movable printing plate having a document format different from document formats of said first-mentioned and other printing plates of said first cylinder, a second impression cylinder adapted to form a printing nip with said second printing cylinder between which web material is adapted to be fed, second drive means for rotating said second printing cylinder through a plurality of complete printing cycles, and second actuating means driven by said second drive means and connected to said second movable printing plate for moving said second movable printing plate to an operative position in a given cycle after every predetermined number of plural revolutions of said second printing cylinder.

4. The apparatus as defined in claim 2 wherein said drive means includes a rotatable drive shaft, first and second driven members rotatable from said drive shaft, said first driven member being carried by said printing cylinder, and said second driven member being provided with said cam means,

5. The apparatus as defined in claim 4 wherein means are provided for driving said first and second driven members at different relative speeds.

6. The apparatus as defined in claim 5 wherein each of said driven members is a gear.

7 The apparatus asdefined in claim 5 wherein each of said driven members is a g'ear,'and said gears have coincident axes.

8. Apparatus for printing web material with a plurality of consecutively repeating patterns comprising a printing cylinder carrying a plurality of printing plates about the periphery thereof, said plurality of printing plates being fixed on said cylinder periphery, means mounting another printing plate on said cylinder periphery for radial movement into an outward normally effective printing position and away therefrom, an impression cylinder adapted to form a printing nip with said printing cylinder between which web material is adapted to be fed, drive means for rotating said printing cylinder through aplurality of complete printing cycles, actuating means driven by said drive means and connected to said movable printing plate for moving said movable printing plate to a retracted inoperative position in a given cycle after every predetermined number of plural revolutions of said printing cylinder, said actuating means includes cam means driven by said driving means, cam follower means movable in response to movement of said cam means, and means pivotally interconnecting said cam follower means to said movable printing plate whereby the latter is moved in response to the movement of said cam follower means relative to said cam means. 

